Argentina’s former detention and torture site added to UNESCO World Heritage list

By DANIEL POLITI
Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina is celebrating a decision by a United Nations conference to include a former clandestine detention and torture center as a World Heritage site. A UNESCO conference in Saudi Arabia agreed to include the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory in the list of sites “considered to be of outstanding value to humanity,” marking a rare instance in which a museum of memory related to recent history is designated to the list. The former Navy School of Mechanics, known as ESMA, housed the most infamous illegal detention center that operated during Argentina’s last brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 through 1983. It now operates as a museum and a larger site of memory, including offices for government agencies and human rights organizations.